Keith Waterhouse - Office Life

Staff canteen, it emerged, would have been rather a derogatory misnomer. It was a staff restaurant more like, housed in the protruding bit on stilts which Gryce had taken for the executive suite. It even had a restaurant-sounding name: the Buttery. It reminded Gryce of all the hotel private-function rooms, most of them called the Churchill Suite, where his various billets had held their Christmas lunches.

Seemingly the Buttery was a fairly recent addendum to the main building, costed originally at £120,000 but in the end devouring the best part of a quarter of a million, thanks mainly to an architectural cock-up which had rendered it inaccessible except via the fire-escape. The restaurant was circular and it was supposed to revolve to catch the sun, but when the supposition had been put to the test it had done one three-quarter turn and then jammed, leaving the dining area in semi-darkness until four o'clock each afternoon, Greenwich mean time.

'If you like salady things, cold roast beef, ham and egg pie, the Salad Bowl isn't half bad,' advised Seeds as they travelled up the stainless steel escalator from the first floor. To get to the first floor they had had to take the lift from the seventh floor to the second, then walk down the stairs. Or they could have gone to the ground floor and walked up. The lift was no longer programmed to stop at the first floor — a throwback to an electricity economy campaign during some long-forgotten fuel crisis. The Buttery was at third floor level, but it could not be reached from the second floor because of an obstruction caused by the plant that was supposed to work the revolving mechanism, nor from the third floor itself because of a ventilation shaft that had been installed to deal with excessive condensation in the kitchens. These difficulties had been surmounted by a considerable engineering feat involving re-siting the fire-escape and routing a covered escalator up the outer wall of the main building and into the Buttery. It was the only spiral escalator in Europe and, according to Seeds, had cost more than the original estimate for the entire restaurant annexe.

'But be warned against the Dish of the Day, probably some veal concoction. Sad to say our chef's imagination stretches farther than his capabilities.'

It was very kind of Seeds to invite Gryce to lunch, or he supposed more accurately to accompany him to lunch, by way, it was to be presumed, of showing him the ropes. It would be embarrassing if it turned out to be an invitation in the literal sense. He would have to reciprocate tomorrow and that might commit them to an arrangement that neither would relish. Buying tea or coffee turn and turn about was one thing, but having to stand each other lunch would put a strain on what ought to be an easy-going acquaintanceship.

The Buttery was full, for all that lunch hours at British Albion were staggered and there were in effect three sittings. Peering into the Arctic gloom induced by the faulty revolving machinery, Gryce was able to recognize several faces from Stationery Supplies: but not, to his disappointment, Miss Divorce, not Mrs Rashman who would be keeping that appointment in the wine bar, and not Copeland. The managers had their own restaurant on the twelfth floor, called the Cockpit.

In the centre of the room was a buffet arrangement featuring the salady things recommended by Seeds. If you wanted the unrecommended veal concoction, or any other hot dish, you joined the queue at a cafeteria-looking counter.

'If you'd like to dive in, I'll see if I can grab a table,' said Seeds obligingly. Gryce attached himself to the throng of mainly women, he supposed they were all slimming, who were helping themselves at the Salad Bowl. He had garnished his plate with some potato salad and one or two radishes cut in the shape of tulips when he saw Miss Divorce, or Mrs Fawce as he had better start calling her, stepping off the escalator which after its convolutions fetched up a few feet from the Salad Bowl.

Hovering between the cold roast beef and the ham and egg pie, Gryce decided to hold his horses until Mrs Fawce, undoubtedly a salady things person, was on hand to advise him on the best choice. She would then, if there was a God in heaven, join him and Seeds for lunch as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Not a salady things person after all. To his surprise Mrs Fawce was aiming towards the hot meals counter. Well, then: she probably took her main nourishment at lunch-time and made do with a light snack in the evening. With no substantial dinner to prepare, that might give her the leisure for a glass or two of wine on the way home.

They would have to be discreet, though. It only needed Mrs Rashman to stumble across them one evening and it would be all round the office.

Carrying his plate of potato salad and radishes, to which he had added a portion of sliced tomato while contemplating the next move, Gryce crossed to the hot meals counter, acquired a tray, and by sliding it along the rail affair and nudging Mrs Fawce gently in the buttocks with it, managed to draw attention to himself.

The smile was encouraging enough.

'We didn't meet properly. Pamela Fawce. Pam, to most people.'

'Clement Gryce. Abbreviated alas to Clem, which makes me sound like a former Prime Minister.' He wondered if he reminded her of, strangely enough, the late Hugh Gaitskell.

After establishing that he was finding his way around all right and agreeing that one's first few days in a new billet were always strange, by which time they were at the head of the queue, Pam Fawce ordered herself shepherd's pie and then raised a query about his plate of salad.

'Couldn't you face the cold beef, then?'

'It wasn't that, it looked delicious. But then I was enticed over here by the tempting aroma of shepherd's pie.'

'Make that two,' said Pam Fawce to one of the serving women. There were five of them, all coloured, plus another two on duty at the Salad Bowl with no clear function, since it was a serve-yourself affair. Then there were at least three women clearing the tables, and a fourth in charge of a slowly-perambulating trolley dispensing coffee to those who required it. No shortage of staff in this establishment.

'The only thing is,' continued Pam Fawce, still on the plate of salad question, 'I'm not sure how she's going to charge you for it. You see normally you'd either have a complete salad, roast beef, something like that, or whatever you want from the hot counter. Then she tears off the ticket for what you've had and you pay on your way out.'

'Oh dear. Tears off what ticket?'

'You haven't been given one of these? Typical.'

Gryce now saw that Mrs Fawce — Pam — was clutching what looked like a wartime ration book. The pages were perforated into squares, each square bearing some such annotation as 'Main Dish', 'Dish of Day', 'Cheese & Biscuits', 'Salad Bowl' and so on. Some squares, another ration book touch, carried the words 'Not For Use'. He also saw that the woman he had taken to be a cashier at the end of the counter was not a cashier at all, but merely a functionary whose duty was to tear off the relevant coupons. Presumably there would be someone in the vicinity of the Salad Bowl performing the same task, while the woman who pushed round the percolator-trolley would be empowered to remove the coupon marked 'Coffee/Beverage'. You then, he imagined, would present your book at that booth affair by the escalators, where they would take possession of the uppermost page and work out the damage according to how many coupons had been detached. All the surrendered coupons would be collated and sorted, and they would have to correspond in value to the cash received. It seemed an unnecessarily cumbersome system.

Gryce seemed to have two problems: the presence on his tray of an incomplete salad in addition to his shepherd's pie, and the absence of a pad of meal vouchers as he supposed they were called. No harm could come of placing himself thoroughly in the hands of Pam Fawce. Not only would she sort out his difficulties, but her doing so would forge a positive link between them. It would be a talking point for many an evening in the wine bar. 'What are you smiling at?' he would ask — 'I was remembering your look of absolute desperation when it suddenly dawned on you that you'd strayed into the Buttery without your meal vouchers.'